Serbian leader rejects Putin label over fears of Russian interference
President Aleksandar Vucic's ties to Moscow raise tricky questions as the Kremlin appears to be stirring up Balkan unrest to distract from the war in Ukraine.
BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia's strongman Aleksandar Vucic is tired of being reviled as a "little Putin" bent on attacking the weak neighbors of his country in the Balkans.
To begin with, Mr. Vucic noted wryly in an interview at the presidential palace library this month: "I measure close two meters." That makes him around 6ft 5in. (Vladimir V. Putin is no taller than 1.75m, although the exact height of the Russian president, a sensitive subject for the Kremlin, is a secret.)
Behind the levity of Mr. Vucic on physical stature, however, lurks a serious question plaguing the Balkans and worrying Western diplomats.
Russia, mired in a brutal war in Ukraine , using Serbia to stir up division in Europe and provoke a new conflict in the former Yugoslavia to distract NATO from the battle raging in the east?
These fears erupted last week when an arcane dispute over license plates between Serbia, which is linked to Russia by history, religion and deep hostility to NATO, and the former Serbian province of Kosovo led to unruly protests, roadblocks and gunfire - triggering the alarm bells in the Atlantic alliance.
Unrest in Kosovo and tensions in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina caused by Milorad Dodik, the Moscow-backed warring leader of the Serbian ethnic enclave there, and by hard-line Croatian nationalists have led to warnings that Russia is trying to stoke the abated but never quite resolved tensions of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.
< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">"Russia calculates that the more time the West spends sweating in the Balkans, the less time it will spend sweating in Russia's backyard," said Vuk Vuksanovic , a researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy.“But there are limits to what Russia can do,” Vuksanovic added. "It needs local elites and they don't want to be sacrificed for Russian interests."
US Ambassador to Serbia Christopher R. Hill, a seasoned diplomatic troubleshooter whose appointment signaled Washington's heightened concern over the Balkans, said Russia, offering only "economic blackmail" and "region-wide chaos", had found few takers.
"Despite influence over Serbia's energy sector and despite its ubiquitous disinformation efforts here, the Serbs have decided that their future is with Europe and the West," Hill said.
Russian media and social media accounts have for months spread inflammatory information about ethnic Serbs in Kosovo and Bosnia suffering intolerable oppression. The reports, which largely replicate Russian propaganda about the plight of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, have emboldened diehard pro-Moscow Serbian nationalists. Ethnic Serbs who still live in Kosovo, inhabited mainly by ethnic Albanians and
President Aleksandar Vucic's ties to Moscow raise tricky questions as the Kremlin appears to be stirring up Balkan unrest to distract from the war in Ukraine.
BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia's strongman Aleksandar Vucic is tired of being reviled as a "little Putin" bent on attacking the weak neighbors of his country in the Balkans.
To begin with, Mr. Vucic noted wryly in an interview at the presidential palace library this month: "I measure close two meters." That makes him around 6ft 5in. (Vladimir V. Putin is no taller than 1.75m, although the exact height of the Russian president, a sensitive subject for the Kremlin, is a secret.)
Behind the levity of Mr. Vucic on physical stature, however, lurks a serious question plaguing the Balkans and worrying Western diplomats.
Russia, mired in a brutal war in Ukraine , using Serbia to stir up division in Europe and provoke a new conflict in the former Yugoslavia to distract NATO from the battle raging in the east?
These fears erupted last week when an arcane dispute over license plates between Serbia, which is linked to Russia by history, religion and deep hostility to NATO, and the former Serbian province of Kosovo led to unruly protests, roadblocks and gunfire - triggering the alarm bells in the Atlantic alliance.
Unrest in Kosovo and tensions in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina caused by Milorad Dodik, the Moscow-backed warring leader of the Serbian ethnic enclave there, and by hard-line Croatian nationalists have led to warnings that Russia is trying to stoke the abated but never quite resolved tensions of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.
< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">"Russia calculates that the more time the West spends sweating in the Balkans, the less time it will spend sweating in Russia's backyard," said Vuk Vuksanovic , a researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy.“But there are limits to what Russia can do,” Vuksanovic added. "It needs local elites and they don't want to be sacrificed for Russian interests."
US Ambassador to Serbia Christopher R. Hill, a seasoned diplomatic troubleshooter whose appointment signaled Washington's heightened concern over the Balkans, said Russia, offering only "economic blackmail" and "region-wide chaos", had found few takers.
"Despite influence over Serbia's energy sector and despite its ubiquitous disinformation efforts here, the Serbs have decided that their future is with Europe and the West," Hill said.
Russian media and social media accounts have for months spread inflammatory information about ethnic Serbs in Kosovo and Bosnia suffering intolerable oppression. The reports, which largely replicate Russian propaganda about the plight of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, have emboldened diehard pro-Moscow Serbian nationalists. Ethnic Serbs who still live in Kosovo, inhabited mainly by ethnic Albanians and
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